William H. Parker
Real life character. Wikipedia article Referenced in * L.A. Confidential * White Jazz * Perfidia Perfidia Bill's background is provided and upon getting out of traffic jam he goes to see Carl Hull, part cop, part intelligence agent and discuss how they need a plant to infiltrate a Fifth Column group, Claire De Haven is running. When Hull provides photos with Kay in them, Bill decides she'll be one they'll use. Bill goes to see Kay Lake to see if he can find the wedge he needs to engender her help. He asks her to work at City Hall listening to taps. She agrees. While out, trying to stay sober, he sees a group of kids and their teacher who had had a bicycling accident. Seeing the teacher, an old intelligence hand during WWI, Jim Larkin drop something he goes to pick it up and sees it's a Luger with red stones offset a swatiska. Jack tells Bill and a group of FBI men, including Ed Satterlee and Ward Littell he's setting up an Alien Squad. Ward argues the morality and legality of it he is easily ignored. Jack also tells Bill he'll be managing the blackouts and was going to be working on the Watanabe case. When the FBI provide lists of the Japanese to be detained and the priority in which that went Bill sees Ryoshi Watanabe in the A list. Leaving the meeting he sees Kay and Scotty beating up a white kid. Bill tells Kay she is to infiltrate Claire De Haven's cell and later while meeting with Dudley discusses the Watanabe case. While discussing this he finds the kids were average but tracking the guns with silencers would be hard due to the clannish nature of Japs. The tracts are also said to be hard to track down as well and the foreign currency was due to politics. While still trying to stay sober, Bill provides Horall, Bowron, et. al. various progresses of their efforts. When Bowron says he's going to have every city employed Japanese citizen fired, Bill, thinking of Hideo, disagrees. Later viewing Bucky's FBI interview with Kay they see him snitch on the Ashidas to Kay's disgust. Bill fills the city officials on Hideo's tap work to their relief. Later at a meeting of the men working the Watanabe case he says he wants to go back to the start. When asked his end, Dudley lies to him about Namura not being connected. After which Bill says he's askes Layman for advanced blood work and for Hideo to take moldings from the dirt near the house. To end the meeting Bill tells them they're going to raid the Deutsches Haus, to Hideo's dismay. Bill hears Jim Larkin has died and remembers the Luger. Upon coming back to the station he sees the arrest log from the raid which included the man Dudley questioned, Robert Noble, and Fred Hilitz. Getting a phone call, Layman tells him Nancy Watanabe was pregnant. Bill thinks he sees Joan while having a drink and meets with Kay to tell her he'll provide her with an outfit for the party and a camera to take pictures. Scotty joins the police force and is considered by Bill to now be one of Dudley's men. At another meeting he finds out Nort is freezing the bodies to which Hideo says it could show if they showed fear before their deaths. Later Buzz says there was a rumor about unknown men going around looking to buy Japanese property. Jack Webb also tells them he saw a middle-aged man in a purple sweater enter the house the night of the murder. Bill tries to put together new discoveries in all his cases but finds nothing that he thinks will pan out. He thinks the tire mold work he gave Hideo will come to nothing and the Santa Monica pay phone calls Bizz discovered may be nothing. Later he has an argument with his wife. Meeting with Dudley and Cantwell they make small talk before Dudley's called away to Chinatown. Bill's call about his mystery woman is solved and he discovers her name is Joan Conville. Hideo comes and tells him about Larkin to which they break into his home. Therein they discover he spoke fluent Japanese and had a ledger of land of A-list detainees that he'd bought or offered to buy their property for under it's value. It's also noted that the people had to have known about the location of the attack and roundups AND that Larkin was killed the day after the Watanabes were killed. Jim Davis coordinates a peace treaty in Chinatown. While giving Fiorello LaGuardia a tour of a prison Bowron and Ed Satterlee are overheard talking about how Preston Exley was making plans to buy up Jap property while they were interred, in particular high-line ones. Later Bill gets a call from Nort telling him he's found shrimp oil on all of the Watanabes' feet and what appears to be intentionally stepping on glass to which Bill tells him to reach out to all hospitals on the subject. Bill goes to Larkin's house and feeds the koi he sees. Afterward he takes the guns and see Hideo who has to admit that he had stolen guns from Deutsches Haus earlier. Hideo asks about the calls and Bill says the Watanabes made them and the pay phones on Lincoln Boulevard, 5 miles away, he'd ask PC Bell for the records to which Hideo says that's not possible in wartime. Figuring out Dudley had scared away anyone who'd cooperate with Bill he goes to Kwan's and after Hideo refuses to hit Ace attacks him ad crashes into the floor. Going to the lab they see all the evidence concerning the guns coming together when a foreign print Hideo had found was found on one of the guns. Bill goes to church to deal with his drinking then to a party where Jack takes him off the Watanabe case. Bill continues to have problems with his drinking so goes to church again. Later, at a meeting, Preston Exley lays out his land confiscation deal. Afterwards Gene tells him he wants him on the Watanabe case for the Sheriff's. Going to a riot in Chinatown he helps quell it with Davis. Going to see the scene Gene told him about, a coast guard spot, they board a boat and the men on it commit suicide and Bill finds foreign currency and tracts. Bill breaks into a canning plant that's been wiped down but has the scent on shrimp oil. When he asks Nort about it he's told the shrimp oil and glass mixture is used to contaminate soil. Later he has to deal with the paperwork on the Exley meeting, which he thinks is nothing. Preston Exley discusses his internment plans and how to implement locally to the best of their ability and says bringing Mexican workers in to deal with menial labor shortages, and that the best internees could be given jobs at aircraft plants and watched over. Later Bill watches as Kay is arrested. Going through Kay's confiscated bag he views the images and then rushes to see her, he finds her in a hospital room with a straitjacket on. Untying her, he takes her out. At the rectory Fr. Cantwell brokers a peace of sorts between Bill and Dudley. Bill is to give up his running of Kay but can keep looking for the purple sweater man and Bill won't divulge Dudley's crimes. Bill figures out that Preston Exley has connections to the case. Hideo apologizes for snitching on Bill and he says he understands. Later he goes to Larkin's house, feeds the koi, and destroys it looking for something until he finds a binder with kanji script in it. Bill thinks about how the fear of sub attacks is in the air, even for the Mexican Staties. Dudley gives a speech in the conference and Bill leaves. As a result of the shakedown Bill is able to question Preston Exley and Pierce Patchett and discovers, yes they were involved in the buy-outs of Japanese homes and land to build new parkways and internment camps. When he suggests the creation of a grand jury to investigate the matter McPherson turns him down. Bill goes down to San Diego with the posse that going after the escaped Japs who're planning to go to Mexico. After they're killed he finds a shortwave radio and pay phone slugs. As a recruiting drive in the police station goes forward Bill is turned down due to being civilian essential. He also notices Kay also tries to enlist but is turned down as well. Finding evidence supplied from Hideo Bill discovers Jim Davis killed the Watanabes. Admitting to it, Davis acknowledges he has a purple sweater. He then goes through his history with fascist associates like Larkin, Lux and Patchett and former Collaborationist Ryoshi Watanabe. He discusses how the pregnancy Nancy got was due to a rape by Tachi. Killing Tachi with Johnny Watanabe, he, hoping for a Axis win, is ecstatic about Nancy's baby since she had been promised to him. When he learns she aborted the baby he kills the family in a rage but not before inviting Drs. Chung and Lesnick to observe a murder disguised as seppuku. In this process Lesnick had stepped in blood and went and left his socks upstairs as well. After the murder he continues he went and killed Jim Larkin to prevent their knowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbor from being revealed. After all is said and done Davis admits he sick and wouldn't make it through the court proceedings and if Bill takes him into custody he'll take the LAPD and Bill down with him. Coming off of learning about Patchett, Lux, and the like from Davis, Bill goes to Patchett's office and beats within an inch of his life. Thirteen days sober, Bill maneuvers a parade. Entering a bar he gets a call from Preston Exley telling him that he won, Patchett and him won't go forward. Thinking he sees Joan Conville he rushes through a crowd but loses her and afterwards goes and breaks his sobriety. Later he goes to see a sleeping Kay and notices blood on her hands ad knew she stabbed Dudley. Category:Characters from The Black Dahlia Category:Characters from The Big Nowhere Category:Characters from L.A. Confidential Category:Characters from White Jazz Category:Characters from Perfidia